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Marolt glares at her, and her tiny, beady eyes are angry now.
“Do you remember those cases?” Eva asks, her voice not as firm and assured as it usually is.
Marolt doesn’t answer, and Eva looks down at her sheet again. “What about some of the more recent ones… Veronika Doler and David Farber? They were killed on November 1st and 2nd,” Eva says and looks up at Marolt. “There is always a stabbing victim around November 1st, or the Day of the Dead, one very similar to the cases we’re seeing now. And last year, there were two.”
“That’s a sad time of year for many people,” Marolt says. “We always see an uptick in suicides, overdoses and murder.”
On November 1st Slovenes celebrate the Day of Remembrance of the Dead and everyone visits cemeteries en masse to light candles for their dead loved ones, so I see where Marolt’s coming from.
“The date is definitely significant to this killer,” Eva says. “And what worries me is that last year, he killed two people whereas before there was always only one victim. He might be escalating.”
Marolt scoffs. “I appreciate that you have a professional deformation when it comes to them, but that doesn’t mean you found one here. Serial killers are very rare.”
“They’re not that rare at all,” Eva protests, and what was a minor annoyance at Dr. Marolt turns into full-on dislike for me.
“I trust Eva’s intuition when it comes to uncovering cases like this,” I say. “Unearthing sleeping serial killers, for lack of a better description, is something of a specialty of hers.”
Marolt blinks at my angry tone, opens and closes her mouth a few times, but stays silent. Eva flashes me a very grateful look.
I wasn’t just saying that to defend her. She’s found five serial killers no one knew about until now. But she also put herself in their way each time, which could’ve ended a lot worse than it did. I cannot let her do that now.
That’s the main reason I’ve jumped on this case, I think. If we’re all working this case, she can stay hidden in the background. Milo looked very scared when we questioned him earlier, and that’s another reason. The frightened look in his eyes still hasn’t stopped haunting me.
“I didn’t perform a post mortem on David Farber. We were overwhelmed and short-staffed at the time due to the case you two were involved in,” Marolt says bitingly. “But I remember the case. He was stabbed in one of the narrow, cobblestoned streets in Trnovo, but managed to stumble to the riverbank where he died. His wallet was missing, but a prescription box for Xanax was found by his side. That’s how he was ID’d.”
“So he already had the medication. He wasn’t buying it,” Eva says. “And if he was killed by a drug dealer who took his wallet, why wasn’t he relieved of the pills as well?”
“The pill box was empty,” Marolt says triumphantly. “So he was either looking to replenish his supply or his killer robbed him of it.”
Eva doesn’t have an immediate comeback to that. Her cheeks are flushed and she’s breathless. And while I always think she’s the most beautiful when she’s excited and whole-heartedly invested in a case she’s trying to solve, I’m not sure that’s what I’m seeing now. Frustration and stress. That’s what this color in her cheeks is. And it can’t be good for her.
But it won’t be good for either of us if I show her that I’m worried. That would just make matters worse.
“I think the detectives investigating this case are doing a good job,” Marolt says defensively. “As for the connections you think you found, I can tell you that I see none between Farber’s case and the ones you mentioned earlier, all of which were successfully solved and closed if I remember correctly. I even remember Tim Ban’s murder, it was one of the first autopsies I performed solo. He was stabbed three times in the chest, and the wounds were messy. He was also a heroin addict.”
“Yes, but…” Eva says, but I interrupt her with, “Thank you for now, Dr. Marolt. We’ll be back after the post mortem on Ana Kobe has been completed.”
Dr. Marolt nods curtly, says a quick goodbye and strides out of the room, still clutching the folder with the toxicology reports—another sign that she was dying to end our conversation.
“What the hell was that, Mark?” Eva asks angrily, rounding on me once the door closes behind Marolt and we’re alone in the room with just the victim again. “I had more questions for her. Do you believe me or not?”
Her cheeks are the color of ripe peaches, and her eyes are bright like the morning sun rising.
“I believe you,” I say. “But there’s no point antagonizing Marolt about it. She’s clearly not a fan of us taking on this case, and like she said, she’s not a detective. We’ll have to come at this from another angle for now.”
Tension leaves her shoulder, along with some of the bright light from her eyes.
“I’m not wrong about this, Mark, as much as everyone wants me to be. I’m sure we have a serial killer on our hands. The worst kind. The slow, methodical kind. Organized, efficient and intelligent.”
“Not intelligent enough,” I say as I wrap my arm around her shoulders and lead her out of the room.
She’s still very tense and I don’t think she believes what I told her. But I wasn't lying. I am one hundred percent behind her on this case.
But the last thing I want right now is to go head to head with another serial killer. Especially a cold, calculating and methodical one. They’re like what dark matter is to the rest of the universe. There’s no humanity in them.
So yes, I believe her, but I hope she’s wrong.
